With a new unit comes a new task, and this week I have spent one 24 hour period tracking my media consumption.
Woke up and checked my iPhone to see it was 7.15am. Late. Decided I would drive to work instead of taking the bus as usual. Finally got on the road at 7.45am which meant I hit traffic. Over the course of the next 75 minutes I listed to the radio while passing various billboards, buses and bus shelters covered with banal advertising. My only highlight was catching some tracks of the new Girl Talk album "All Day".
I Arrived at my desk around 9.15am, fired up the computer and quickly skimmed both my Gmail and work email for 15 minutes before heading to grab a coffee and breakfast. While waiting to collect my order, I checked the news headline via my iPhone.
Once I got back to my desk, I spent 15 minutes going through more email while also checking my calendar for the day. I then quickly confirmed some details for that evening with a friend via Gtalk, before heading off to my first meeting for the day at 10am. During the course of the meeting I continually checked email via my iPhone.
After my meeting, a colleague provided me with directions to avoid morning traffic on the way to work. I discussed the details while I was shown the route using Google maps. Using the "My Maps" on Google maps, I saved the new directions for future reference and sent driving directions to my phone via email. No more shite delays if I leave late again.
11.30am rolls around and I load the staging link for the project site I am currently working on. While reviewing the previous days updates to the site, I spend 15 minutes answering more emails relating to the project. With the emails dealt with, I spend 5 minutes catching up on my Twitter stream and loading some recommended news articles to read. I end up watching a quick video on how some students have hacked a Microsoft Kinect controller to create a Minority Report style interface. How cool is that?
Today lunch time means gym time. While I don't personally don't use an iPod in the gym, there is music playing courtesy of the radio, and for those people who just can't get enough of crap day time television, each machine has it's own built in TV. I choose to switch it off.
Once I get back from the gym, it's more emails while having a quick bite to eat at my desk. 15 minutes later I jump onto the web to purchase a new backpack. It takes me about 15 minutes to decide and complete the order. Damn I love ecommerce. Using Gtalk I quickly answer another question from a friend before heading to my next meeting. Again during the course of the meeting I check my email and Twitter stream via my iPhone.
After the meeting I get a chance to watch a short internal promotional video for the last project we just launched, it's a very polished piece of work and should communicate the changes made by the project very well. It's now 2.50pm and before I start on my final major task for the day, I complete some online banking, checking account balances and setting up some automatic payments. Really, what did we do before internet banking?
3pm. I start working on adding and updating a number of online FAQs for my current project. This takes a couple of hours to complete although during the course of completing this task, I randomly check both my work and personal emails, read through my Twitter stream, tweet some articles I have recently read and respond to some Twitter direct messages.
5.10pm rolls around and I take the opportunity to get away early, spending the next 40 minutes driving home. During the drive I listen to a DJ mix on my iPhone through the car stereo while again passing various outdoor advertising messages on billboards, bus shelters and the sides of buses themselves.
Home and time to turn of the brain for an hour while I watch a TV show streamed from my media server upstairs, to my TV in the lounge downstairs. While doing this, I also download updates to apps on my iPhone while I browse some websites on my iPad.
After finishing watching my show I receive a TXT from a friend confirming the time they will get home from work. I set off to walk to their house listening to music on my iPhone. It's a quick catch up before I head home stopping on the way to check the price of a house for sale using the Commbank's augmented reality property app.
Once I am home it's study time, and for the next 40 minutes or so I browse the Web207 Blackboard while listening to music through iTunes and checking my Twitter stream. Occasionally I flick to an article or site on the web to do a little further research before it's time to have dinner.
Dinner is spent on the couch watching a new epsiode of Dexter for an hour and then back upstairs for more study. This time I listen to music through iTunes while reading Manovich, the second reading for the week. Every so often I will check my Twitter and tweet the song I am listening to. After an hour I search out the new Girl Talk album and download a free copy from the labels site. While I am waiting for my download to complete I read some album reviews and read up about the album on Wikipedia.
Somehow I get sidetracked and listen to the album preview for the new Tron Legacy soundtrack from Daft Punk; I spend the next 15 minutes listening and preordering the album while my Girl Talk download is finishing. Once my download is complete I load the album into iTunes, while I am there I also download some new Freakanomics podcasts after which I synch my iPhone with new music and podcasts.
Finally it's midnight and time to sleep. Before I do though, I share the love and tweet the URL for the free download of All Day.
Job done.
Summary
During the course of a normal day I am exposed to a lot of media, be it via phone, computer, television, billboard, magazines, radio and the like. Of particular note is how my television viewing habits have completely changed in the last few years, now most of my viewing has been time-shifted or is through online video. I now regularly use social media to connect with friends and family, while using services such as Twitter to find sources of information for study or interest. A large proportion of my daily chores such as paying bills and banking is done via the web through my computer or phone.
I spend an awful lot of time reading and replying to email.
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